Floatinghead's ramblings about music and music-related themes interspersed with various interludes and home of Cabeza de Vaca radio show on Scanner FM, Barcelona.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Ambient mix – The earth as still as stone

“The sky is empty/silent

The earth as still as stone

Nothing stands above me

Now I can sleep alone”

Rowland S. Howard

I need to make something of a disclaimer
regarding this mix. The original idea came from something that Mute boss Daniel
Miller wrote in the liner notes to a Mojo compilation called “Electricity: A
brief history of future sound” that came out in September 2012 and which for
some reason stuck in my head. Miller wrote that “As far as the sequencing goes,
I started with Fad Gadget’s “Back to nature” – a very important track for me
personally because it was the track that really got Mute going as a label. I
ended the compilation with Non’s “Total war” because it’s a track that can’t be
followed”. Given the sheer aggression of sound and theme, I tended to agree
with Miller’s opinion.

Nonetheless, the idea that “Total war”
could not be followed seemed to me to be an interesting conceptual challenge
for a mix. Could I create a narrative arc where this idea was the central
theme? Could I sonically and thematically create this idea of war and
destruction after which nothing would remain? Therefore, this mix should in no
way be perceived as any kind of personal opinion or call to arms and should not
necessarily be taken to be my personal opinion about the world. It is an
intellectual exercise, a puzzle to assemble perhaps, and if anything, I would
like to present a criticism of violence and fear and just ask why? Is violence
essential to nature? Similarly, situating certain artist’s tracks around this
intentional idea of violence and war may be to give them context and
association that they do not have or do not want, so I apologise to them if
there is any misunderstanding caused. Noise does not necessarily have to be
violent and, indeed, I quite often find it soothing.

Continuing this idea I make particular
reference to the brief appearance of the Kraftwerk track “Vom Himmel hoch”
(From Heaven above) which features synthesised sounds of bombers coming in and
dropping their payloads. Axis or Allied bombers or both? It was David Stubbs who
pointed me to this track in his book “Future Days: Krautrock and the building
of modern Germany” where he says: “In later musical life, Kraftwerk would
become renowned for their synthetic transcriptions of modern mechanised life.
The opening passage [of “Vom Himmel hoch”] is, however, a rare direct reference
in the Krautrock canon to wartime, whose traumas and experiences generally play
a much more suppressed and subliminal role in the music.” Stubbs also makes
reference to Kraftwerk reclaiming potentially controversial national symbols for
Germany, such as the autobahns, which were originally built by Hitler, and also
romanticising trains which clearly had their own sinister purposes in the
Second World War. This is obviously not to say that Kraftwerk are secret Nazi
sympathisers, probably the opposite, but it warns that context and
misinterpretation are always possible. This is also the point of this
disclaimer, to try and avoid anyone taking this mix in the wrong way, but at
the same time I do not want to imply that there is any fixed way that it should
be taken. The title of this track also refers to a hymn text relating to the
Nativity of Jesus written by Martin Luther in 1534 which reads "Vom Himmel
hoch, da komm ich her" ("From heaven above to earth I come") and
which has appeared in many other works, most notably Bach.

The mix was done at home during the first
few days of the year on Christmas vacation and was finished last week before
the events in Paris on Wednesday. I was playing it at home on Friday night to
check the final adjustments I had made and I felt a little bit uncomfortable
listening to the closing sequence, especially to “Total war”, but also the
British Murder Boys track. Moreover, my French girlfriend was in the room and
was reasonably upset by it, but ironically found the shift to Pharmakon’s “Bang
bang” to be somehow even more disturbing, despite it being essentially quieter
and a well-known pop “song”. This of course was the point of selecting it and
it marks a clear epilogue, if there is indeed something after “total war”, or
alternatively it is the last inhalation of breath before the beginning of a
second climax. I should also add that some of my girlfriend’s family is from
Algeria, like the French killers, and therefore the events this week were particularly
important for her and others like her as they are clearly a betrayal and a
profanity of the most profound kind.

If anyone was wondering, the mix was made
entirely in Adobe Audition and in some cases there are three or even four
tracks playing at once. I have used cut and paste editing of tracks in several
occasions to create small loops or continuations of sounds and so on, that make
it easier to graft the subsequent track or to create continuity of ideas such
as the nature sounds.